The Framers Forum

Hi any recommendations for simple insurance ?

I’ve been doing for myself and friends but I am starting to get more and more jobs so feel like need insurance to cover if something happened to the artwork whilst it is with me for framing.
Any recommendations or specifics on what is required would be much appreciated
Thanks in advance

Hi. I found that Hiscox provides the best cover for me and will cover goods in trust unlike many others.

Hiscox here too. I would recommend asking Besso (https://www.besso.co.uk/web/product-por ... rt-framing) for a copy of their summary of cover to see what they can offer. I found them expensive, even with an FATG discount. If you don't decide to go with them, you'll have details of the various categories required and be able to build your own policy with Hiscox etc.
The main categories are:
Contents - premises, stock, goods entrusted, fixtures, fittings furniture etc
Business Interruption
Money
Public/Products Liability
Employers Liability
Personal accident
Defective Title
Fidelity - misappropriation by employees
Buildings
Rent
Glass - shop fronts etc
Cheques/Credit cards - forged/stolen
Process Cover - accidental loss or damage of stock & entrustments (customers work)
Legal Expenses.
Obviously not all will apply to your business model, but you can build your own policy to suit yours. Just make sure not to undervalue anything (eg machinery costs should be replacement cost) otherwise what's the point..

Hiscox for me too.
The main issue for me was finding someone who would cover goods in trust, so other people's belongings while I had them in to be framed.

Thanks soo much for these responses ! I decided to go with Hiscox cause I couldn’t clearly see from the others if they were covering artwork in my care as I frame it
Thank you again

I'm with NFU. I have a policy that covers the actual building as well as equipment/stock. Also Public Liability.

One thing to pay attention to: I carry a basic level of cover for "Items Held in trust", e.g. Customer's work kept
on the premises. Do ensure you can prove the value of such stuff. They will not pay out based on what the customer
thinks it worth. A friend of mine had a painting in his window which was done by himself. Priced £75. Some kind soul
broke his window and destroyed the painting. The window was covered but the assessor only valued the painting based
on replacement of the canvas and paint. You can see their point. You could price any painting at £75,000 and break the
window yourself. A point to consider...

If you pick the bones out of a policy there are actually quite few 'pay-out' situations. If the damage is caused by you own
negligence then they will not pay out. If you for instance spilled a cup of coffee over customer's item or the dog chewed it
then they are not going to pay out. Even if the place burnt down they would do their best to prove it was your fault.
Robbery? Same thing.

If I have a particularly valuable piece in the shop that exceeds your basic cover amount the my policy allows you to
increase the cover temporarily. I can pick up the phone and arrange an extra £20,000 or whatever for a week or two.

** I often think that if you just had basic cover required by law and payed the saved premiums in a 'disaster account'
you would probably be ahead of the game. If nothing happened you would have a nice little nest-egg. In 40 years I have
never had to make a claim.

That was my issue with NFU (as well as them being politically very right wing), that they raised my cover to £25,000 but then advised that they would only do this once, rather thn what the sales agent had agreed.
Hiscox will provide "process cover", touch wood I will never need it...

Me again - so I went to actually start policy with hiscox but apparently they don’t cover the work whilst you are actually working on it ? Is that the norm ?
. They weren’t very helpful so I’m confused about the terminology of what I should actually be asking for .
They said they would cover the artwork whilst in my care but not whilst being worked on.

Reading through the above ,Is it ‘process cover’ that I need to add to the standard public liability cover ?

Yes, it is often called process cover (im away so can't check), but definitely "goods in trust/goods held in trust", insuring the work while it is in your possession. It assumes that the customer can prove value if required to. Over a certain total value for GIT, an underwriter will become involved, with many more questions involved. Persevere, they will figure it out eventually!

I need to look into this too, so interesting to read. So does the process cover the entire time it is in your possession, include whilst working on it?

Yes, although from memory, some only call it goods in trust and not process cover and labouring the point with the sales agent just confuses them. Goods in trust covers the piece while it is in your possession.

With my first comment being that I have no specific knowledge of the insurance policy from this company or any other with coverage that is not from the US. Here it goes.

The clients art if valuable should already be insured with the clients own coverage. I.E. their homeowners or some other entities insurance coverage.

The general liability area is the tricky one that might include.

• fire
  theft
  flood

The areas not mentioned might be.

• actually being damaged or destroyed while performing a procedure
  the use of improper materials
  employing improper procedures
  or some other activity

Then there is the question of value. As a formerly trained appraiser who has worked with insurance companies in the US I make the following comments.
There are several basic values of "real property". Real property is that which is not part of real estate, fixed to the earth. They are

• purchase price(invoice)
  value new
  value used
  value equivelent
  value depreciated
  wholesale value

note that insurance companies like the last listed as their favorite as it is possibly the lowest. There are some others such as distressed sale values which come in various sub-catagories.

You have to ask alot of questions.

I have only had one occasion in over 35 years when I have attempted to make an insurance claim for an item that I damaged whilst framing it.

It was a Quentin Blake signed limited edition print on hand made paper that had sold out and were being traded for much more. The customer had paid ‘a lot of money’ for it but did not have a receipt. I tried to remove a pin sized black mark that I saw as I was framing it, and turned it into a much bigger black smudge. The customer wanted it float mounted so there was no hiding my mistake! My insurance company were most unhelpful as without proof of value they would only pay out only pay out the original list price of the print.

Out of desperation I telephoned the publisher and got a very friendly lady who was most sympathetic to my plight, and said that by chance Quentin was in the office that day signing some other prints, so she would ask him. To cut a long story short, I got a replacement in the post two days later absolutely FOC!

To this day I have the damaged one on my bedroom wall, with a mount covering the black mark. This serves as a reminder to not make the same mistake again!

I never bothered to discuss it further with the insurance company, but I pay my insurance each year not really expecting that much from them.

You need to check the specifics of your intended policy. Mine differentiates between 'goods in trust' which covers the whole period of my possession of the item, and 'process cover' which specifically covers the actual work on the piece. They are essentially two different things. Having said that, I've never had to claim so don't know what approach the insurers would take. As in all these things, the devil's in the detail.

Let's face it, insurance is a cost that we pass onto the customer. It covers our arses?
I maybe went overboard making our business an LLP (or maybe not?) It's a dedicated work from home framer and artist studio, but the reality was that I was attracting high value work in and didn't want to have to sell my house if there were any "complications".
You need insurance, public liability is a minimum.

I have done quite a bit of investigation on this. The issue is one of vicarious liability an insurance company will always try to regain any losses that it has made. This would in the case of a framer us. If the persons insurance company will come after the company that damages the work. There is then the whole thing of moving the goods which is separate and also a problem.